ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE THIRD WIND POWER AUCTION SCHEME

The Government has announced the trajectory for achieving its targets of commissioning 175 GW of Renewable Energy (RE), 100 GW of solar generating capacity and 60 GW of wind power, by 2022 on November 24, 2017.   

Addressing the gathering, Union Minister of State (IC) for Power and New & Renewable Energy, Shri Raj Kumar Singh said that there was a long pending demand from the Industry to declare the RE roadmap of the government. Hence, with the declaration of this trajectory, the Government has clearly spelt out its plan of speeding up of RE installation in the country and strengthening the RE manufacturing base in India. 

Shri Singh informed that to encourage the Make in India in RE sector, the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) is working out the scheme and going to issue an Expression of Interest (EoI) to the industry, for establishing domestic manufacturing facilities to the tune of 20 GW, in the near future. Further, the MNRE is exploring innovative ways to achieve additional installed RE capacity through floating solar power plants over dams, offshore wind energy systems and hybrid solar-wind power systems, which may provide over 10 GW additional capacity. The MNRE team of experts has already surveyed the Bhakra Nangal dam for floating solar power plants and offshore Gujarat and Tamil Nadu for wind power plants, the Minister added. Shri Kumar also said that with wind power tariffs becoming competitive and State DISCOMs encouraged to buy more of renewable energy power, the government has doubled the auction capacity for the third national level wind auction from 4 GW in 2016 to around 9 GW in 2017. 

The present scheme of Wind Power Auction is for setting up of 2,000 MW Wind Power Project connected to interstate transmission system (ISTS). The bidder can bid for a minimum capacity of 50 MW and maximum up to 400 MW.  The projects under this scheme are expected to be commissioned towards the end of 2019.  

On the occasion, Power Sale Agreements (PSA) for purchase of wind power under second wind auction with States were also signed with Solar Energy Corporation of India with utilities of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Punjab, Goa and Odisha. The reverse auction for SECI-II wind bid was conducted on October 4, 2017, which resulted in very competitive tariff of `2.64/2.65 per unit.  

Other dignitaries present on the occasion were Shri Praveen Kumar, Additional Secretary MNRE; Shri K S Popli, CMD IREDA; Shri J S Swain, MD SECI; and other senior officers of the Ministry and State Governments.

Source: http://pib.nic.in/